Airdate: September 6, 2007
D.W. on Ice
"D.W. on Ice" contains examples of:
- Blatant Lies: Every time D.W. falls while trying to train James, she comes up with more and more ridiculous excuses, culminating in her claiming she fell because James breathed on her!
- Call-Back: D.W. tries to get out of going to Emily's ice skating party by claiming to have chicken pox, to which her mother points out that it's not possible since she's already had it.
- Dream Sequence: The night before she is to teach James ice skating, D.W. has one where she saves James from the Tibbles (who were going to use him as a hockey puck) by using her skates to propel snow at them and then lassoing them, performing a figure skating routine under a spotlight afterwards.
- Easily Forgiven: After D.W. apologizes and admits she was jealous of him, James ultimately has no hard feelings towards her for wrongly calling him a terrible student, and the episode ends with them going ice skating together with their classmates again.
- Failure Montage: D.W. falls several times while trying to teach James ice skating.
- Failures on Ice: Having only ice skated three times in her life, D.W. is not a very good ice-skating instructor. In fact, James seems to be a better ice skater than she is.
- Gratuitous French: The Cold Open has the patriarch of a French family ask Arthur to take their photo in his native language.
- Green-Eyed Monster: When D.W. sees that James is better at ice skating than she is, she quits as his instructor out of jealousy and embarrassment, and even calls him a terrible student to his face.
- Here We Go Again!: After taking several falls while trying to teach James to ice skate, D.W. goes to skate again with him and all of their classmates at the end of the episode despite still not being a great ice skater, accepting that at least her constant falling won't look as silly since their classmates aren't as good as they thought they would be.
- Imagine Spot: D.W. has one where she falls down on the ice rink and the Tibble twins pick her up with a crane attached to a Zamboni, carrying her onto a frozen bird bath outside the Read house. It turns out she can't even keep her balance on the bird bath!
- Instant Expert: Defied by Arthur in the Cold Open when he points out that instantly mastering something is not likely to actually happen, "unless of course you're D.W." This is reflected in the episode itself, where D.W. thinks she's a great ice skater despite only having done it three times, but ends up falling several times while trying to teach James.
- Never My Fault: When D.W. crashes into Arthur while sliding around on her house floor, she chides Arthur for not looking both ways before stepping into the "rink", even though, as he points out, their house isn't a rink.
- No OSHA Compliance: The ice rink does not appear to have any rule against ice skating without a helmet on. The kids are lucky they didn't get seriously injured or killed, especially D.W. given how many times she fell over.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: D.W. and James have a falling out when D.W. gets jealous of him for being a better ice skater than her and calls him a terrible student. Of course, they make up in the end.
- Sock Slide Rink: The day before she is to teach James how to ice skate, D.W. practices by sliding across her house floor without her shoes on, and ends up crashing into Arthur as he comes home.
- Spectacular Spinning: In D.W.'s Dream Sequence, she is able to spin fast enough on her ice skates to propel ice at the Tibbles.
- Surpassed the Teacher: From the beginning, it is clear that James is a far better ice skater than D.W., who is supposed to be his instructor, since he falls far fewer times than her. Deconstructed in that this makes D.W. jealous of James and quit as his instructor.
- Training Montage: One where D.W. tries to teach James how to ice skate. Key word being tries.
Spoiled Rotten!
Once Upon a Time, there was a little princess, who was wealthy in cash but poor in appreciation...
After Francine calls Muffy "the most selfish spoiled brat", Muffy sets out to prove to her friends that she is not spoiled."Spoiled Rotten!" contains examples of:
- 0% Approval Rating: The "Poor Little Princess" in the Cold Open is disliked by all of her subjects because they perceive her as greedy and selfish.
- Break the Haughty: Francine finally calls Muffy out on her spoiled behavior.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: The Cold Open features a fairy tale book called The Poor Little Princess, which is about the titular princess (played by Muffy) who is wealthy in money but feels poor because her subjects don't like her.
- Jerkass Realization: At the end, Muffy seems to have realized how spoiled she has been acting, as she responds with "Well, if the shoe fits...!" when Francine apologizes for calling her spoiled.
- Nightmare Sequence: Muffy has one where she finds a pair of golden sneakers inside a pyramid, but then falls into a quicksand pit that Bailey is unable to pull her out of because of the sneakers' weight.
- Once Upon a Time: The Cold Open begins with this phrase, since the whole sequence is a parody of fairy tales.
- Pride Before a Fall: Literally in Muffy's Nightmare Sequence, where she puts on a pair of golden sneakers she finds inside a pyramid, only to then fall into a quicksand pit that Bailey can't pull her out of due to the sneakers' weight.
- Pun: When Francine apologizes for calling Muffy spoiled at the end, she responds with, "Well, if the shoe fits...!" Their conflict began in the first place because of a literal pair of shoes.
- Quicksand Sucks: Justified in Muffy's Nightmare Sequence, where she gets sucked down into a quicksand pit due to the weight of her golden sneakers.
- Shout-Out: The Cold Open has Muffy dressed like Marie-Antoinette. Also, the narrator mentions Snow White by name.
